I'm the Contributing Editor, Investigations, for Forbes magazine—and writing a book about Bernie Madoff, to be published by Simon & Schuster. From 1982-2004: Staffs of Forbes, Time and Fortune magazines. Projects for BBC News, CNN, Fast Company, FoxNews.com and PBS. In 2005, launched Project Klebnikov, a global media alliance committed to shedding light on the Moscow murder of Forbes editor Paul Klebnikov and to furthering the investigative work that Paul began there. More than 20 journalism awards, including the George Polk (twice); Overseas Press Club (twice); Gerald Loeb; National Magazine Award; Daniel Pearl; Worth Bingham; Conscience-in-Media Award; and Top 100 Business News Luminaries of 20th century. Not doing cartwheels over the current state of investigative journalism, but I'm an eternal optimist.
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The Fate Of A World Bank Whistle-Blower

The World Bank is a place where whistle-blowers are shunned, persecuted and booted–not always in that order.

Consider John Kim, a top staffer in the bank’s IT department, who in 2007 leaked damaging documents to me after he determined that there were no internal institutional avenues to honestly deal with wrongdoing. “Sometimes you have to betray your country in order to save it,” Kim says.

In return bank investigators probed his phone records and e-mails, and allegedly hacked into his personal AOL account. After determining he was behind the leaks the bank put him on administrative leave for two years before firing him on Christmas Eve 2010.

With nowhere to turn Kim was guided into the offices of the Washington, D.C.-based Government Accountability Project–the only game in town for public-sector leakers. “Whistle-blowers are the regulators of last resort,” says Beatrice Edwards, the executive director of the group. Edwards helped Kim file an internal case for wrongful termination (World Bank staffers have no recourse to U.S. courts) and in a landmark ruling a five-judge tribunal eventually ­ordered the bank to reinstate him last May. Despite the decision, the bank retired him in September after 29 years of service.

The U.S. is beginning to notice. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee insisted on inserting a whistle-blowing clause in 2011 after World Bank President Robert Zoellick approached them for an increase in the bank’s capital. But ­because of the supranational structure of the bank, the Senate’s demands are ultimately toothless.

“We can’t legislate the bank,” explains a Senate staffer. “All we can do is say, ‘We’ll give you this [money] if you do that [whistleblower protection].’ But they say, ‘You can’t make us do that because we can’t answer to 188 different countries.’ ”

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Thanks to Frobes and Mr. Behar for publishing an excellent expose on lack of accountability in the World’s leading development agency. I wish to bring your attention to an excellent piece authored by Yacob Yonas (a 17 years old Princeton University Sophomore) and his sister Ida Yonas (a 20 years old UVA fourth year student). They put the blame rightly on the US government. Let me quote them in extenso.

“In March 2012, several victims of discrimination including our dad appealed to the Bank’s Board of Directors to have their cases reviewed by an independent justice system. After reading their plea an African member of the Board responded saying that he found their story “saddening and disturbing,” but noted that he could not do anything for them. The entire 52 African countries account for less than five percent of the voting rights allotted to the Board of Directors. All the African Director could do was to wish them ‘the Almighty’s guidance.’

In contrast, the Director representing the UK government that enjoys almost equal voting rights with all Sub Saharan African countries combined responded saying neither her office nor her government is able to get involved in such matters. A quick glance at the by-law of the World Bank indicates explicitly and unequivocally that (i) the Board of Directors is responsible for the conduct of the general operations of the Bank, and (ii) the Tribunal is under the Boards oversight. When the Bank is involved in systemic human rights violation and the Tribunal denies grieved staff due process of the law, the Board of Directors has both institutional and moral responsibility to intervene. When those with power lack moral fortitude and those with moral fortitude lack power, the bestial remnant of our heritage as risen apes takes over our human instincts as fallen angels.

Ultimately, the buck stops with our government. Both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (to which our government is a signatory) and the US Constitution (to which our government is a custodian) dictate discrimination and denial of access to legal redress represent violation of human rights. Our government’s failure to rein in systemic and gross injustice that has lasted for over six decades cannot be explained by the Bank’s immunity from the US courts alone. First, since the Bank opened its doors in 1946, all its presidents have been American citizens. Second, the US is the largest share holder of the Bank with almost equal voting rights with all developing nations of Asia and South America combined. Third the US is the largest fund provider to the World Bank to the tune of tens of billions of dollars. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that our government’s failure to end decades of human rights abuse in an institution that it is a large part of represents a breach of America’s promise for “the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”

John Kim’s story about the alleged hacking of his personal AOL email is not surprising for many World Bank staff who dared to accuse the Bank of wrong doing. I will list a few examples.

1. In the Case of Bo v. World Bank (2010): Bo is on the record accusing the Bank of deleting evidence from his email account.

2. In the Case of AI v. World Bank (2010): AI is on the record accusing the Bank of going into his email account and extracting information that the Bank turned around and presented as evidence against him.

3. In the Cae of Yang V. World Bank: Yang is on the record accusing the Bank of going into her email account and extracting information that it turned around and used as evidence aginst her.

4. In the Case of AI v. World Bank the Bank falsified his HR record by deleting his many years of managment experience and turned around and claimed that he has no management experience to be appointed as a manager. The Bank did this after AI accused his managers of racial discrimination.

5. In the Case of Karen Hudes v. World Bank: Karen is on the record accusing the Bank of erasing critical information from her HR file.

There are many more examples of the Bank’s blatant violation of staff members’ privacy and email accounts.

This sorry state of affairs is not unique to the World Bank as the article rightly claims. I advise the reading of the whistle-blowing book “U.N. a Cosa Nostra” on Amazon.com to get a more comprehensive and exhaustive view of the mechanisms of corruption and nepotism in these institutions. What is regrettable is that these institutions wield enormous powers, egregious privileges and de-facto play a major role in setting the ethical and moral standards for many of the private institutions which are now blamed for poor standards such as private banks. Hence the future looks doom.

The U.N. made unsuccessful attempts to block the publication of the a.m. book under fallacious grounds. Unless these organizations who entertain this kind of “unethical” behaviours mend their ways, they will not escape forever, sanctions, dismantling and reinvention.

I commend Mr Kim with his ethical decision to blow the whistle. As opposed to those “school yard tactics” that was used by the corruptors that includes treating him shamefully, at least Mr Kim is able to look at himself with clear eyes – unlike those that should be ashamed! A tip of my hat to Mr. Kim!

I am not nearly the magnitude of Mr. Kim. but I work for a city where I turned in corruption in the assessment department. When they found out that I had turned documented evidence in to the Attorney General’s office I was put on one week unpaid and now I am on paid administrative leave???

The US Congress’ demands are not ultimately toothless because of the supranational structure of the Bank. The World Bank is not above the law. The World Bank issues bonds on the capital market and is subject to regulation by the SEC and the National Advisory Council on International Monetary and Financial Policies. The World Bank’s financial statements must comply with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and Auditing Standards. Because of a cover-up of corruption at the World Bank, the US credit rating is now about to be downgraded. http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/failure-to-tell-voters-of-corruption-lowers-the-us-credit-rating-175784391.html